“I believe their client was Congress but I know that they have done all kinds of projects both regional…I don’t remember a national project, but I know regionally, I mean, India…is so big that, you know, one state can be, you know, as big as Britain,” Christopher Wylie, a Canadian whistleblower who was the former director of research at CA, said while deposing in front of the British Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

“But they do have offices there (in India). They do have staff there. I believe I have some documentation on India which I can also provide if that’s the case,” he added.

Even though India was so far not officially named in the scam, it has caused a furore in the country. The fear of Indians’ data being manipulated stems from the fact that the country has Facebook’s largest user base of over 241 million.

On March 21, Indian law and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had warned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of action if his company had allowed any data theft from the country. “We have got stringent power under the IT Act. We shall use it, including summoning you in India,” Prasad had said.

India and CA

Research & Communications CampaignCA was contracted to undertake an in-depth electorate analysis for the Bihar assembly election in 2010. The core challenge was to identify the floating/swing voters for each of the parties and to measure their levels (of) electoral apathy, a result of the poor and unchanging condition of the state after 15 years of incumbent rule.

In addition to the research phase, CA were tasked to organise the party base at the village level by creating a communication hierarchy to increase supporter motivation. Our client achieved a landslide victory, with over 90% of total seats targeted by CA being won.

In this Bihar election, an alliance led by Janata Dal United (JDU) leader Nitish Kumar had won with a four-fifths majority.

SCL also has an India arm called Strategic Communication Laboratories Private Limited, The Print reported last week.

Incorporated in November 2011, the company’s registered office is in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, and it has four directors: Amrish Kumar Tyagi, Alexander James Ashburner Nix, Alexander Waddington Oakes, and Avneesh Kumar Rai. According to government records, the company’s business includes “legal, accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy; market research and public opinion polling; business and management consultancy.”

The mudslinging

Even as India featured just once in Wylie’s deposition, and he did not share any details of CA’s modus operandi in the country, he has doled out enough arsenal for a political war of words.